April 2008 Archives

The big guns are definitely out to get him. Like prize fighters who detect a weakness in their opponent, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are pounding away at the Democrats leading contender for the Presidential nomination, hoping to cripple him on their march to fantasized victory. They bring up Rev. Jeremiah Wright, play the race card, say he's too weak to take on Osama.

And it seems to be working. Somehow the media is perceiving Obama to be a loser because he can't "close the deal" against Hillary Clinton. Eventhough he's actually ahead and on target to close it some time between now and the August convention. The only point in question is when not if. He has a seemingly insurmountable lead that could only be derailed by some scandal or gaffe of summit-like proportions. And that's what everyone's waiting for. Makes for good TV and keeps the ratings up. The media is not evil in this way. They are as their DNA made them, doing what comes naturally in their own self interest.

Obama is no longer scripting the story as well as he was in the early days. Like the military pundits paraded out on the national news shows, the media seems to be taking its lead story off Clinton campaign talking points. Negative campaigning serves the media interest because it provides a better story than the finer points of health care policy.

As Maureen Dowd astutely observed, Hillary looks all energized and ready for action, while Obama is like a fighter in the 8th round of a 15 round title fight. Tired, in search of a plan that served him well in the early rounds, but has since deserted him, He needs a second act and second wind to go with it?

And so do we, the electorate, need a high potency protein shake to get over a creeping case of primary fatigue. Rookies that many of us are at the game, drawn into it as much by the charisma and message of Barack Obama as by any inherent obligation to be good citizens, we jumped in early and gave it our all and now we're tired. Pros pace themselves knowing that they're going to need the energy to make it to the finish line. We need to regain our focus.

McCain spouts inanities like "Obama is Hamas choice for President" and "I will be Hamas' worst nightmare." And Hillary lets him get away with hit, collaborating with the enemy in her silent acquiescence.

The task for Obama is to get control of the narrative, the story line, the sound bite that plays it just the rght way. To get back on message about his campaign for hope and change and away from the machine politics that drives America and consumes the soul of Clinton and McCain. His strength lies in painting the big picture, a picture of hope that has invigorated millions of Americans. The wonk that he is, he can get down and dirty on poicy minutaie, but when he does he plays by their rules and he loses. His message must transcend politics and appeal to our better instincts. Barack Obama can only win on his own terms. It's not abut Jeremiah Wright or anything else that comes up along the way. It's how he handles himself in the trenches that matters. He's got to take the heat and come out caring and cool.

Obama poster created by Morning Breath. Available at Uppperplayground.

Do you remember "Mission Accomplished", the pithy little phrase that adorns this photograph? The photograph was taken on May 23, 2003, the day that George Bush "landed" on the USS Abraham Lincoln, all dressed up in fighter pilot gear, to announce the United States' victory in Iraq.

I've been against the invasion the Iraq from the very beginning and I still feel in my bones the horror at seeing such a lie gleefully broadcast across not just all major media in the United States, but all over the world. I knew, as many other antiwar activists did, that the banner was a lie and that it was a lie intended to confuse and distract from the truth of the occupation. Yet it is still scandalous that media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and the very pro-BushCo media outlet, Fox News went into the lie knowingly.

Back on 20th February 2002, the BBC published a report titled, Pentagon plans propaganda war. In it Tom Carver reported the following :

The Pentagon is toying with the idea of black propaganda.

As part of George Bush's war on terrorism, the military is thinking of planting propaganda and misleading stories in the international media.

A new department has been set up inside the Pentagon with the Orwellian title of the Office of Strategic Influence.

It is well funded, is being run by a general and its aim is to influence public opinion abroad.

Now comes word that the BBC report was wrong on one count. The Pentagon didn't want to just manipulate the media internationally. President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew rather well that the war they were waging was here on U.S. soil.

The New York Times just published a report titled, MESSAGE MACHINE | Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand. It describes how the Pentagon used and/or deployed retired military officers to appear on US TV news shows as "unbiased" military analysts. By exploiting the reputation of some of these decorated generals, the Bush administration unleashed a disinformation campaign on the Unites States public, especially when accusations of human rights abuses in Guantánamo Bay were turned into lawsuits against the government.

Some of the analysts didn't react immediately to the manipulation because they allegedly didn't see any conflict of interest. Yet others seem to have been fully aware of it, especially those who were working for companies benefiting from the war with military contracts. One of the generals went even as far as promoting his ties to the government on marketing materials for his military consultancy company.

It's a powerful report that needs to be read carefully. Yet is it too little too late, coming from The New York Times?

This is the same newspaper that had hired Judith Miller, the infamous NYT journalist and alleged expert on Middle Eastern affairs who published the false report about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. These were one of a series of "unbiased" reports used by the Pentagon to launch the occupation of Iraq.

Either way, the report was felt as a major earthquake on Capitol Hill and the news media world. The New York Times now reports that the Pentagon has stopped "briefing" military analysts that work on broadcast and cable news; pending an internal review.

With all these stories, I am still amazed when people incredulously question the need for an alternative media and especially bloggers.

A hell of a lot happened forty years ago this spring. Martin Luther King Jr. was assinated in April, Robert Kennedy was killed in June, Columbia University students took over their school in protest of the Vietnam War, and the so-called "Prague Spring" -- a series of revolts in Czechoslovakia against Soviet domination -- spanned from January to August of 1968.

Among these uprisings were the famous student riots in Paris, from May to June, chronicled by Bernardo Bertolucci in his 2003 feature film The Dreamers.

Protesting the Vietnam War, university policies, and the overall state of the world, the students in those riots were largely influenced by their national cinema -- namely the French New Wave. The directors of that group -- Jean-Luc Godard, Francoise Truffault, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and others -- not only chose revolutionary themes, but revolutionized cinema as well.

Their use of on-location, documentary-style shooting, non-professional actors, and hip, frenetic editing, as well as their prototypical postmodern approach to story-telling, influenced filmmakers worldwide. In the United States, the 1960s saw an explosion of counter-cultural cinema from the likes of Dennis Hopper, Arthur Penn, Martin Scorsese, and John Cassavetes, to name just a few.

And for the first few weeks of May, should you find yourself in New York, you can see first-hand what all the fuss was about. Catch the early works of Godard at Film Forum, in Lower Manhattan, and see the films Godard and his New Wave compatriots inspired at Lincoln Plaza.

These cinematic archives are not merely exceptional works of art, but proof that art has immense power to inspire, provoke, and bring about radical social change.

At its simplest level, my motivation for creating this photo was killing time. In the Texas House of Representatives, guests and reporters watch the proceedings from the balcony. On this day I was posted up there waiting for the Reps to get back from lunch. Luckily, I had my point-and-shoot digital camera in my pocket and got this shot. I thought it captured the sense of anticipation at the beginning of a legislative session well.

I Don't Want to Blow You Up is a new coloring book intended to teach a very simple lesson: Not all Muslims are terrorists.

Conceived and written by Ricardo Cortes and Bowman Hastie, who previously collaborated on Just a Plant, another coloring book about the benefits of hemp, I Don't Want to Blow You Up features several Muslim men and women -- some of whom are famous -- a short bio, and the simple declaration that they don't want to blow you up.

The book found itself under fire even before it got published, and one of its main subjects -- basketball icon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar -- demanded to be omitted from its pages. This set back its publishing date by several months, from November 2007 to February 2008. We caught up with Mr. Cortes to ask him about the book, its arduous journey to print, and the message he hopes it will send to the increasingly xenophobic, anti-Muslim West.

What led you from a book about marijuana to one about Muslims?

I found a lot of similarities between the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror" that is our current obsession. Both have created a culture of fear based on false and inflammatory propaganda, and both involve children in how they perceive the world around them as they mature.


When did you begin working on the book, and what was your primary motivation?

My co-author Bowman Hastie and myself were hanging out at the edge of a pier on the Hudson River, some time in late 2006. Neither of us can remember the exact conversation, but it must have had something to do with life in post-9/11 New York City. We might have been discussing the color coded "Terror Alert" system developed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or the growing political concern over "immigration reform", or the added security measures we've all had to endure at airports. We might have been talking about our own suspicions and fears, and possibly recounting some personal instance of catching ourselves scrutinizing a person on the subway because they appeared to be Arab or Muslim. We might have been trying to imagine what must go through the minds of people who have taken the brunt of these fears and suspicions, and even hate, in recent years. The title of the book derives from our imagined sentiment of someone who is absolutely innocent yet still must face this sort of distrust and hostility from so many people they encounter, day in and day out. The statement, as we imagined it, is incredulous and defiant: "I don't want to blow you up!"

What is the book's basic message?

The basic message is: in the face of fear and hysteria that saturates much of what we hear in the media about people who are of a different culture, religion, etc., give someone the benefit of the doubt that they are in fact an interesting and peaceful person.

How do you think the form you chose -- a coloring book -- helps communicate that message?

Storybooks can often come across as didactic or romantic, two things we wanted to avoid. We didn't want to burden the reader with too much text, but we wanted the book to be reality-based, which is why we chose to offer this selection of mini-biographies. By making it a coloring book, we're gearing the book to kids, and also to adults who might appreciate exploring this serious topic without all the grim statistics and tales of injustice that so often accompany it. A coloring book also invites the reader to interact more with the book. To spend more time ruminating, not just reading.

Is the book really for kids? Please feel free to explain/contradict/qualify/etc.

Sure! The book is for kids, although I won't deny the ability of an incendiary book title like ours to be able to crack into the adult public's eye or even into media queries such as this very interview. What's important to us is that once we engage adults with the conversation and spark that debate, we simultaneously provide their children with an authentic and intelligent story that stands on its own. While it's great to be able to pierce the zeitgeist with a shock, once the smoke clears there's still a child reading the story, and we hope we've created a book that is fun, and can educate in a manner that runs much deeper than mere provocation.

That said, this is a book dealing with a complex set of issues; parents would be encouraged to read the story with their kids.

Did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's reaction surprise you?

Controversy is bound to come up when dealing with such a serious issue. It's difficult to deal with incendiary issues without pushing the bounds of comfort. Terrorism and war isn't a comfortable issue in the first place, and feathers are sure to be ruffled. For example, Mr. Abdul-Jabbar is an impressive man with a very positive history and could be an excellent role model for children. We described him in the book for these reasons. For whatever reason, he wanted to be taken out of the book. He won't be featured in the second edition. End of story.


Do you think the book is affecting change and educating people the way you hoped when developing it?

We know there are children in the U.S. and other western countries who are called "terrorists" and "Osama bin Ladin" simply because they look Middle Eastern or have an Arabic name. We hope those kids might feel empowered when reading stories of other inspiring and impressive people like themselves. Similarly, the children out there who have fallen into the role of perpetuating the terror myth might be able to learn something when seeing some of their heroes in a different light, or by discovering new heroes in unexpected places. We don't necessarily think we'll be able to open too many adult minds that are already closed, but we did want to provide a tool that more open-minded adults may use to address this difficult subject with their kids.

Having recently spent much time in South Africa, I have a close, personal connection to the region and its history. During the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, Zimbabwe provided a safe-haven for South African freedom fighters. Here, exiled South African artists Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, widely known for anti-apartheid views in their music, were free to perform alongside Paul Simon in the now famous 1987 "African Concert".

Now, some 20 years later, Zimbabwe is in dire straits and risks becoming a failed democratic state after only 28 years of independence. What's more, the official stance of its neighbor, South African President Thabo Mbeki is, despite out-cries from human rights groups,"no crisis" exists in Zimbabwe.

On the heels of the recent election turmoil and violence in Kenya, secretly filmed footage from Zimbabwe has emerged showing victims of violence following the country's recent elections. The release of this footage overcomes the ban of most foreign media.

Last week, Human Rights Watch reported current President Robert Mugabe's party (ZANU-PF) is using torture camps to retaliate against those Zimbabweans that supported the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), in the election. According to the MDC Secretary-General, 10 people have been killed and more than 300 opposition voters have been victims of beatings and other forms of violence, while Mugabe and his government strongly deny these claims.

Following the failure to release the election results, South African President Mbeki was appointed to mediate the crisis, yet little progress has been made in releasing the results or curbing the intensifying violence.

This recent news brings the country's economic turbulence in global focus. It is estimated that 3 million people have fled to neighboring South Africa to escape the grave situation: unemployment in excess of 85%, less than a 40-year life-expectancy, and an annual inflation rate of over 165,000%. The country faces severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and basic necessities. It is easy to see why those in Zimbabwe risked so much to vote against Mugabe's and his economic policies.

So, who is to assume responsibility for protecting Zimbabweans from widespread violence, voter intimidation, and ending this political deadlock? If the crisis in Zimbabwe fails to be resolved quickly, will it affect all of Southern Africa through further economic instability in the region and another African refugee crisis? For years, Zimbabwe and (more recently) South Africa have represented hope for democracy and peaceful resolution in Africa. Stabilizing the situation by listening to the will of the Zimbabwe people, releasing the elections' results, and abiding by the result without further bloodshed, is the country's only hope for short-term survival. The international community must act to stop these terrible actions and restore the rule of law in Zimbabwe.

Harper's Magazine, the monthly journal of all things cultural, political, and generally curious about the world we live in, recently introduced a weekly email newsletter that features little bits of information the mainstream media might have barely mentioned, buried in the middle of the paper, or simply missed altogether.

This week's edition focuses on the Pope's visit to the United States last week, and regardless of how much you followed his activities, this exhaustive list provides some insight into how this country receives a dignitary of Pope Benedict XVI's stature.

Beyond the bizarre circus that surrounded his visit, this case is particularly interesting for one simple reason: When Joseph Alois Ratzinger was appointed to the papacy, in April, 2005, the reaction was not especially positive. He has a rather checkered past, having allegedly been a member of the Hitler Youth and served as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith -- formerly the Holy Office of the Inquisition -- from 1981 until 2005. He was such a hard-ass conservative, in fact, he was sometimes referred to as "God's rottweiler."

Apparently, he has been much less of a staunch conservative than some feared he would be three years ago, but still, take a look at how we received him:

Pope Benedict XVI toured the United States. Kathleen Battle, Harry Connick Jr., and Kelly Clarkson serenaded him, President George W. Bush gave him a crystal cross and a birthday cake, Placido Domingo threw him a birthday party (but forgot to invite him), Jews welcomed him into a Manhattan synagogue, and fans at Yankee stadium performed the wave in his honor.

Three Girl Scouts fainted in his presence. The Senate and the House took half a day off so that more than 100 members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senator Edward Kennedy, could take a bus to Nationals Park, in Washington, D.C., to hear the Pope deliver Mass.

Baker Liturgical Art, LLC, the Connecticut-based clothing company hired by the Vatican, revealed that more than 150 artisans (including 50 seamstresses), and 1,500 yards of fabric were necessary to outfit the Pope and his entourage in new vestments for their 6-day stint in the United States. Brian Baker, the company's president, also created a one-size-fits-all flex-miter for the occasion.

By the time we're adults, we should have a pretty good idea of what foods will make us sick. If I'm about to pour cow's milk on my cereal, for example, I reflexively check the nose: if it's the least bit sour, I dump the whole carton. Likewise, if I see any pink in my chicken, I send it back to the kitchen, or I take it there myself if I'm at home.

But it never occurred to me that I should also be leary of alfalfa sprouts, canteloupe, or packaged salad greens.

As someone who's constantly looking for a healthier diet, this click-through annotated slideshow from MSN.com instantly caught my eye.

Since reading up on the potential benefits and dangers of unpasteurized dairy products for a previous post, however, I'm now more leary of our dietary paranoia than I am the food we eat.

On a recent trip to Paris, I was surprised to see my host lighten his coffee with milk that smelled decidedly rotten to me. He responded, "I might not drink a whole glass, but for coffee it's fine."

In other words, it's all relative.

The same friend frequently insists that one can eat chicken raw, a claim I've disputed tooth-and-nail many times.

Obviously Avian Flu, E.Coli, and Salmonella are dreaded illnesses, and should be avoided. But is MSN's list of ten "dangerous" foods valid, or just another example of our nation's collective nervous stomach?

Monday afternoon I finally made the decision to pack the kids in a rented car and drive us down to Philadelphia to Obama campaign any way we could. I had been hesitating for a few days but the thought that my kids were going to lose the opportunity of being part of something truly historic gave me palpitations. After I made a couple of phone calls I was told to go to "1352 Gerard Avenue", the person told me there was plenty of work to do in that ward.

Well.

The Obama campaign has been blessed with a grassroots bounty of donations and volunteers who are at the ready to donate their week's lunch budget or hop in their cars and drive across states to help get out the vote and canvass for the Senator.

This does not mean though that everything in the campaign runs smoothly. Case in point? When I was given the address to get to this precint office, the person said, "Use Google Maps and you'll find the address easily". Yet one wrong letter and one misspelled avenue later, I ended up what probably was the middle of nowhere in Hillaryland.

You see, "Gerard Avenue" is a little nook of street in the very upper middle class suburb of Elkins Park. It is an unincorporated community split between two townships and about 10 miles from Philadelphia's Center City.

"Girard Avenue" could not be farther away from Elkins Park. It is in the heart of North Philly's 14th Ward and if there is anyway to describe this area, one would have to compare it to the striking poverty and decay of New York's Harlem and South Bronx back in the 1980s. Nice people, neighborhood rough.

I am part of a group of political pundits who write for Personal Democracy Forum's blog on technology, politics and the presidential race, techPresident. I'm in the throes of finishing a paper they will be publishing later this year about the current state of politics and the future of it thanks (or no thanks) to technology. I find it hilarious that I ended up in the middle of nowhere thanks to one of the subjects of my essay : A digital native who thought the right answer to getting people to their campaign was to know which online mapping software instead of knowing the class, race and geographic nuance that an "E" instead of an "I" brought to my journey to the city of brotherly love.

We got off exit 6 on the New Jersey Turnpike and traveled west on Pennsylvania's own. Before getting lost in Elkins Park, we drove past farms and exurban areas until we hit the strip mall and suburban mayhem of Roosevelt Boulevard. Most people waiting for buses where Asian, Black or Latino looking. Most people in cars in this area were not.

We stopped for directions and the gas station attendant was right out of a Simpsons episode. He heckled and chased off his premises a young white dude who was hustling from a white van what the attendant describes as "stolen car stereo equipment". This happens to him now every single day. "The guy knows the police won't come for over a half an hour and that's all he needs to sell his stolen stuff". On the counter I notice he is selling lighters that look like buckshot rifles."Do you want to buy one? They're all the rage around here", he said. I said no thanks and we settled for "whoopie cushions" the kids found on a toy stand along with toy assault rifles and toy handguns and even a toy grenade.

Off we went on our journey. We drove through Cottman and past Township line. The houses went from townhouses to cottage types to huge, sprawling million dollar mansions ensconced in well manicured naturalistic setups. Past Cedar and then Harrison, the houses became more McMansiony, more cookie cutter although these neighborhoods we were driving through looked like they'd been lived in for not decades but maybe a century.

Once we hit the dead end of Gerard Avenue I asked a lady sitting on her porch for the address I was looking for: "Never heard of it". When I asked her if she knew of an Obama headquarter, she smiled and said, "There's no such thing around here".

Now, I don't know if that was true, but I can tell you that the kids were counting Obama and Clinton signs and for every five Clintons there was one Obama. My oldest son, Evan, wistfully said at one point, "this doesn't look good."

We called headquarters again and once we were set on our way, we drove all the way down Old York Road. Again we saw the strip malls and townhouses but then something happened. It was right after we passed Roosevelt Boulevard that things changed dramatically.

My son Evan took that picture because he noticed the sign everywhere. "What's a "cash daddy" mom?" I had to explain that people who can't make ends meet sometimes have to sell or pawn their things and that I thought that might be the business model for that company. "What's pawn?" came after that and we just went through a whole discussion of the current economy and social classes.

The kids took many pictures of boarded up brownstones New Yorkers would kill for, rows and rows of them as we drove down what was now North Broad street. We drove past some nicer areas that were cared for by Temple University. Yet most of N Broad was in a state of disrepair that screamed, "it's been like this for ages".

When we finally got to our destination on the corner of N Broad and Girard Avenue, people from all over the country were there to lend a hand. There was the mother-daughter team who got up at 5am and drove down all the way from Boston. There was a whole family who vanned it from Queens. There was the dude from California, the retired teacher from Virginia. People from all races, genders and abilities were there to help get out the vote. Once my kids walked in the door, the age range of volunteers dropped to 8 and 10 years old and went all the up to 70 years old.

The buzz, the energy and the enthusiasm was absolutely overwhelming. People kept coming in an out of the office at a pace that even my sons found astounding. Volunteers grabbed leaflets by the hundreds and packets with maps and addresses and leave to knock on people's doors and urge them to vote. Some of them were literally driving voters to the polling places, particularly elder people and the disabled.

We took our fliers, our packet and our maps and along with a local volunteer we drove down to a most Latino neighborhood, in the area f N 2nd Street and Dauphin.

To say this was a poor neighborhood is to put it nicely.

We parked, the kids took to their scooters and with our guide we hit every house. Then we stumbled upon some volunteers from SEIU, the service workers' union. They had already canvassed the area but had not stopped to talk to most people because they didn't speak Spanish. Helena my guide spoke some, but I'm not just a native speaker, I am from Puerto Rico and people can pick that up immediately from my accent.

With all the talk of recession lately, social and economic charities might not be foremost on your mind. And just as you're pinching your pennies, so is corporate America, causing several high-stakes charities a lot of worry about where they'll get the donations they've long received from deep-pocket financial and legal companies nationwide.

According to a New York Times article on the topic, the rule of thumb in philanthropy is that 90% of the funds come from 10% of the donors. This means that the very rich will be receiving a lot more fund-raising phone calls in 2008, and those charities that relied on companies like Bear Stearns, which was devastated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis last year, will face a rough road ahead until they find new corporate support.

Compare this to just four years ago, when the same newspaper cited above reported that the 400 wealthiest Americans provided 7 percent of the total charitable donations, despite accounting for *just* 1 percent of the nation's overall income. And even that, for some, wasn't enough. It was argued, justifiably I might add, that those donors could have given much more without diminishing their socio-economic standing.

But at least the spirit was there, and the ability.

The real question here is whether this recession has actually cost us that ability. If the federal government can throw each of us $600 just for filing our taxes on time, isn't it fair to say that it could just as easily allocate those funds to causes that really need them?

Of course, the $600 checks are meant to stimulate the economy, which is kind of like giving to charity. After all, charity is simply something given to a person or cause that needs it, and our economy does need a boost. But what if the wanton, impulsive use of those checks doesn't help at all, but instead just leads to more trouble later on?

This strikes me as a good example of the federal government missing the mark in its effort to help solve a problem we all have to deal with: our prosperity overall, not just those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs, and therefore the luxury of doing our taxes.

Clearly at the macrocosmic level, multinational corporations and rising first-tier nations with large energy appetites are proliferators of environmental toxins. But at the microcosmic level, we, as individuals, are also unfortunate participants in the global crisis.

Consider: The American way of dying. If Jessica Mitford's wry 1963 bestseller The American Way of Death was an eye-opening expose of the funeral industry's Plutonian efforts at parting the bereaved from their hard-earned cash, then yesterday's AP article about eco-friendly funerals - replete with funereal clothing sewn from natural fibers, biodegradable coffins and a natural-setting burial plot - was a fascinating new take on that most inconvenient of rituals.

When plotting the ultimate exit strategy, Green Funerals, or, as they are also known, "Natural Burials," are more and more becoming an acceptable option, especially for socially-conscious Boomers. Metal caskets and chemical embalming are not particularly friendly to the environment. "In 15 years natural burial has become one of the fastest growing eco movements in the UK," Mike Jarvis, director of the Natural Death Centre, told The Guardian.

New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, is getting its first eco-burial site on July 1st. According to Simon Webster of SMH.com, "the deceased will be buried in biodegradable coffins between gum trees in a protected koala sanctuary." Families will be able to pick a burial site in the bush land attachment to Lismore Memorial Park Cemetery in the Northern Rivers region. Headstones are to be made of natural rock, and biodegradable coffins are made of plantation pine, recycled cardboard or woven wicker. And green burials are comparatively cheap, in the $250-$3,000 range as opposed to the average funeral, whose headstones alone can cost several thousand dollars.

As someone who attended an eco-friendly New England college festooned with orchards, it was not entirely unusual to hear people talking about wanting to be buried under an apple or a cherry tree. But to have the environment figure into the funereal equation and to have it discussed so openly in the newspapers as an emerging trend is somewhat heartening, especially considering the expanding global population and increasingly finite planetary space.
[Image: shiftmag]

While Americans simultaneously complain about sharply rising fuel prices and sharply declining housing prices, citizens around the globe are complaining about stratospherically high food prices that are leaving millions of people in some of the poorest nations of the world unable to pay for even the most basic necessities of life. Perhaps not surprisingly, this popular discontent around the globe is bubbling up into violent clashes with governments, leading to the very real risk of global destabilization.

Last week, page one stories in both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times highlighted the true extent of the global dislocation caused by rising food prices. Think police in riot gear, massive protests by impoverished citizens and heartbreaking photos of poor citizens rummaging through trash heaps for food. The government in Haiti has already crumbled, and foreign policy advisers are already warning that large-scale violence and rioting could follow in any of 33 different countries, including Indonesia, Yemen, Ghana, and Uzbekistan. This obviously has a lot of people worried. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund just convened an emergency meeting of bankers and high-ranking diplomats to sort out the issues.

On the surface, the solution would seem to be clear: wealthy developed nations need to get food as quickly as possible to poor, less-developed nations, and deal with all the associated costs later. However, it's a bit more complex than that.

For one thing, there's strong anti-American resentment in these nations, with many citizens blaming the U.S. for the higher food prices. Finance ministers in these nations are pointing to the ethanol craze in the U.S., which is pushing up the prices of food crops across the world. Rather than blaming themselves, these nations have found a natural target -- Americans burning corn for fuel. (Turkey's finance minister called the use of food for biofuels "appalling.")

Another factor is that many of these governments are taking a "let them eat cake" approach to the idea of popular revolt. In Haiti, (now deposed) President Rene Preval looked out at a crowd of citizens and taunted them: "[I]f Haitians could afford to carry cellphones, which many do carry, they should be able to feed their families. 'If there is a protest against the rising prices,' he said, 'come get me at the palace and I will demonstrate with you."

To quote one famous revolutionary from another era, What is to be done?

I was in Thailand prepping a movie and, while having traveled extensively all over the world, Thailand took my breath away. It was my first time in a Buddhist country and the style and substance of this country was clearly different from any other place I had been. There is a forthcoming graciousness, a generosity of spirit, to be found in the most casual contacts. In the course of criss-crossing Thailand, I spent time whenever I could taking my camera for walks - through the teeming markets, the temples and monasteries, small fishing villages, street shrines. In the cities and countryside, while there is surely poverty, it is rarely of the grinding, oppressive, hopeless type I have seen in so many other places.

On one of my walks I saw this young woman and her dog sleeping on a pedestrian overpass in downtown Bangkok. I try to avoid taking photographs of people in the streets without their permission but in this case, I could not resist trying to capture the poignancy of this 'scene'. The geometry of the configuration, the details - the shoes tied to the rope leash, the hand gesture, the yellow line on the bridge - made a striking composition. And the irony was that just on either side of the pedestrian overpass were six lanes of Bangkok traffic madness.

The other day I was channel surfing and caught the tail end of a report on this disturbing find on the Pacific Ocean. The animation included in this post is part of a report by Greenpeace on how the Pacific Ocean is being transformed by the largest runoff garbage dump in the world:

The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre covers a large area of the Pacific in which the water circulates clockwise in a slow spiral. Winds are light. The currents tend to force any floating material into the low energy central area of the gyre. There are few islands on which the floating material can beach. So it stays there in the gyre, in astounding quantities estimated at six kilos of plastic for every kilo of naturally occurring plankton. The equivalent of an area the size of Texas swirling slowly around like a clock. This gyre has also been dubbed "the Asian Trash Trail" the "Trash Vortex" or the "Eastern Garbage Patch".

Who knew there are scientists who have been studying the EGP for years --as way back as the 1950s. What's worse is that there is nothing about this garbage swirl. Cleaning the ocean is out of the question because, where as we going to put the debris? The only two immediate solutions is to limit our consumption of plastic and aggressively recycle what we already have. Better biodegradable plastics are in the horizon but consumption here is what's key in the making of this disaster.

Kenneth Cole presented his views on the Olympic torch controversy, challenging readers to re-think the way they view China

Liza Sabater highlighted how mapping mash-ups are changing the way we think about both U.S. carbon emissions and home foreclosures

Martha Burzynski shared a photograph of pro-choice supporters in New York's Union Square

Robert Genovese, VP of Marketing and Media Director at Kenneth Cole Productions, pointed to a new genetic testing service that sounds like something out of a science fiction film

GOOD Magazine contributor Daniel Milder sent in a riveting first-hand account from Cambodia

Evan Greenberg, an employee in the Finance Department at Kenneth Cole Productions, highlighted an inspiring organization helping homeless men and women get back on their feet

David Alm reported on how the subprime lending crisis is affecting renters in New York as well as a controversial new "cross-border" advertising campaign from Absolut

GOOD Magazine: On Skid Row, Part 4 - God

After my time working and living on Skid Row in Los Angles, it became clear to me that the solution to the "human zoo" is not exclusively a human concern. A lot of the people I met there are in an accelerated state of spiritual transformation. That includes the people living on the street as well as people working in service capacity there - myself included. Part 4 of the "Skid Row" video series will introduce you to a few of them.

For more information about Sam and his "Skid Row" video series, be sure to check out his MySpace profile. Also, read his recent interview with the AWEARNESS Blog, in which he describes the true scope of the homelessness problem on Skid Row.

Meme: "A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another."

After Barack Obama gave a speech last week suggesting that many Americans who live in small towns and rural areas are "bitter" and "frustrated", the presidential hopeful received a wrathful response.

In his speech, Obama described the people in our country who have long faced economic, educational, and professional adversities. According to a transcript published on the Huffington Post, he told his San Francisco audience of fundraisers that "it's not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who are not like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations."

Senators Clinton and McCain, for one of the first times since this race for the nomination began, seemed united by a common goal: to make Obama appear against the hard-working men and women of middle-America.

"I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America," Senator Clinton told the press. "Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."

In his defense, Obama held fast: "No, I am in touch," he said. "I know exactly what's going on. People are fed-up."

Finally, in what was no doubt a political move more than a sincere retraction, he conceded on Saturday that his remarks had been ill-chosen.

Now, depending on where you fall in the Clinton/Obama divide, this story is likely to do one of two things: either fuel your fire against Obama, or frustrate you further about the circus that this race for the democratic nomination has become.

Obama's comment quickly became a meme .

The media picked it up, and Clinton and McCain both pounced with great urgency on Obama, citing portions of his comments in their attacks.

But like the notion that John Kerry was a "flip-flopper", Howard Dean's primal scream, and Bill Clinton's assertion that he "didn't inhale," Obama's comments need to be considered in context, and with a degree of skepticism toward how the media reports on them.

Maria Gajewski is conducting an interesting experiment. To fundraise for her favorite nonprofit: Blandford Nature Center & Mixed Greens (in Grand Rapids, Michigan) she will try to live on 30 dollars for a whole month and give them the remainder of her food budget as a donation. This she is doing to not only to explore how hard it is to eat healthy with very few means, but to raise awareness of the variety of local eating, even the dandelions from one's backyard:

"This is not just about trying to understand poverty from an ivory tower, academic perspective," Starner said. "We can talk about eating local, talk about eating healthy, but if you only have so many hours in a day and you're working three jobs at minimum wage and trying to maintain your family, it's challenging."

In the video clip we include, Maria talks about dandelions she foraged for that week. A harvest that many suburbanites would look at as a basket of weeds but, as Maria discovered, one that could provide 112% of the RDA of Vitamin A.

She is keeping track of her experience through video, audio and good old blogging at Rice, Beans and Mixed Greens. Check it out.

Hat tip to GhandiLover, one of my followers on Twitter, who pointed out that Evan Steiner had conducted a similar experiment and blogged about it at Hungry For A Month.

As the Olympic torch continues its tortured trip around the world, it's hard to tell who is getting burned by all of the demonstrations - the Olympics themselves, the Chinese government, or the protesters?

There's no doubt that while South Park may have introduced us to the concept of "Blame Canada," today's refrain is clearly to "Blame China."

As we settle into a recession, and our economy appears to be going from bad to worse, China's exports continue to grow, as does their GNP. They continue to outperform us economically (with continued job growth, and improvement in the standard of living), so one can only conclude that the playing field can't be level, and that they must have compromised basic safety and other standards to have accomplished such.

Clearly, there need to be better health and safety standards on Chinese exports, but whether it's dangerous dog food or toys with lead paint, the companies that import goods made in China have as much responsibility for the safety of their products as the Chinese do. (I can no more blame the country of China -- or Italy for that matter -- if I import bad quality or ill-fitting shoes then I can my own quality control department.) And clearly, what's happening in Tibet is wrong. But the fight for Tibetan autonomy has been going on for 1,300 years.

So if we really want to see progress in the area of consumer safety, or the freedom of the Tibetan people, the answer isn't to try to extinguish their torch as much as it is to look to our own - the one held aloft by Lady Liberty in New York Harbor.

Prior to 1848, much of the western United States was part of Mexico. And according to a recent ad from Absolut Vodka, it still is.

Not really, of course, but that was the implicit message in the ads, which were intended only for the Mexican market. When Americans caught wind, all hell broke loose.

In the ad, a Mexican border is imposed over California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. The goal, says Absolut, was to symbolically return that land to Mexico, which fought to retain it in the Mexican-American War.

In response to American outrage, Absolut offered the following statement on its consumer phone line: "In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues."

I think it's safe to say that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and I have very little in common. But, for a brief moment on March 29 when our paths crossed at the Phnom Penh Airport, we were on the same wavelength. I was coming from a trip up the Mekong to Khone Falls. Mr. Sen was going to Ventiane to determine the fate of Khone Falls. I had spent the previous week traveling up the Mekong River with aquatic ecologist Zeb Hogan who's on a mission to document the world's megafish. A megafish is any freshwater fish that grows to at least 6.5 feet in length or more then 220 pounds.

We were searching for giant fresh water stingray, and Zeb had heard rumors of a monster near Khone Falls. We spent the week talking to local fishermen and sitting around drinking lukewarm beer waiting for them to call with news of a ray. They didn't, which is not that surprising. Stingrays are very difficult to catch and are rare - technically, they are listed as vulnerable. The Mekong and the stretch just below Khone Falls in particular, is home to more megafish then any other river in the world. Along with stingray, the list includes the Mekong Giant Catfish (critically endangered) and Irrawaddy Dolphin (critically endangered). Life for these rare fish doesn't look to be getting any easier if Laos builds the Don Sahong Dam at Khone Falls, only two kilometers from the Cambodian border. That is bad news for fish living below the falls, and for Cambodians who get two thirds of their protein from fish caught in the Mekong and its tributaries, as well as relying on the river's annual floods to fertilize their fields with nutrient rich sediment. This, presumably, is why Hun Sen was on his way to Ventiane.

The Mekong River starts high in the Tibetan plateau, and makes its way through 6 countries, over a course of more then 3,000 miles. It is the 11th longest river in the world and approximately 90 million people rely on it. One of those is Sok Long, a fisherman we spoke with who lives with his family just north of Kratie not far from a dolphin pool. He is a reserved, serious man with a beautiful wife, a young daughter with wide toothy smile, and an even younger son who followed his daddy everywhere he went, and will no doubt be a fine fisherman himself when he gets older, assuming there are still fish in the river.

China has already built 6 dams on the upper Mekong, and it has resulted in depleted fish stocks and lower water levels below the dams. The Don Sahong Dam could prove particularly harmful to fish stocks in Cambodia because 87% of fish species in the Mekong, whose behavior is known, are migratory, according to The Worldfish Center. The Don Sahong Dam would prevent those fish from completing their lifecycles. The dam would almost certainly reduce water levels below it affecting Tonle Sap river and Lake, tributaries of the Mekong, which supports nearly half of Cambodia's 13 million citizens.

There is no doubt that Cambodia and its neighbors need affordable energy, but at what cost? The Don Sahong Dam is just one of many more dams planned for the lower Mekong. Another in the planning stage is the Sambor Dam to be built just above one of the last remaining Irrawaddy Dolphin pools, and Sok Long's home. The dolphins almost certainly would not survive the dam. As for Sok Long and his family, I wonder what will happen to them.

When nations around the globe recognized International Women's Day last month, on March 8th, the focus landed on the positive -- as commemorative holidays are meant to do. But according to reports, the situation for women worldwide has not improved.

Last week the United Nations released a report indicating that 70% of the world's poor are women, and that women own just 1% of the world's titled land.

This despite the fact that 185 nations in the UN vowed to outlaw any law that favors men by 2005.

The report also revealed that 53 countries allow rape within marriages, that the legal age for girls to marry is often well below that of males, and that many countries have sexist statutes on divorce, maternity, and pensions.

Yet, women comprise around 40% of the world's workforce, and on average work more hours than men.

Obviously, some countries are worse than others. In Bangladesh, for example, 40% of that nation's 140 million people live below the poverty line, and they spend 70% of their income on food. The situation is worse for women, who face deeply entrenched discriminatory values within Bangladeshi society.

In 1997, the Bangladeshi government formed a National Policy for the Advancement of Women to bring about equality and opportunity for women. But by 2005, the government had apparently changed those policies, more-or-less under the radar.

And that's just one example.

Will the values promoted by International Women's Day ever be acknowledged?

On Monday, April 7th, I posted a piece about gun control in the United States, inspired in part by the passing of Charlton Heston on Saturday the 5th. The point of the post was to revisit the themes raised by Michael Moore in his 2002 film Bowling for Columbine.

In support of my argument -- namely that hand guns remain a problem in the US -- I cited a report from the admittedly left-leaning Soros Foundation, mistaking it to be recent. (It turned out to be eight years old.)

Within a day, I'd received numerous irate comments about the post. I began responding, and before long I'd made several enemies -- all of whom fell on the "pro" side of the gun debate.

But one gentlemen, who wrote under the handle "Charlz" and who had begun the attacks against my post, and I quickly evolved from foes into friends. We began to comment back and forth about not only gun control, but the kinds of biases we unintentionally bring to an emotionally-charged issue like gun control. Such biases, we agreed, allow us to readily believe statistics that we'd be wise to scrutinize a lot more closely.

Charlz revealed himself to be not only for the licensing and legal distribution of guns, but also a reasonable and intelligent interlocutor. He raised a number of valid points, and while he didn't convince me that guns should be legal nationwide, he did make me think. He even came to my defense a few times against others whom I'd upset by the post.

We also discussed the nature of blogs, and how they open the debate to anyone who wishes to join in. Not long ago, readers had no recourse to the people who fed them the news, beyond writing a letter to the editor and hoping it got printed.

With blogs there are no gatekeepers. If you want to chime in, go for it. And the more points of view, the better. Otherwise we're just a bunch of pundits on one side of the political divide preaching to our respective choirs. If everyone who reads this blog already agrees with what they find here, what kind of progress are we really making?

Foreclosures are incredibly violent events that affect more than just the home owners and their immediate families. Each home lost to the banks becomes a deep, cutting wound, bleeding whole communities and leaving the survivors traumatized. It's a war out there in this economic mess we call the "Sub-prime mortgage crisis".

Google Earth and Google Maps have become incredibly resourceful tools for tracking wars and conflicts all around the world. What you see here is a screenshot of a mashup created by USAToday.com using Google Maps and the public records of the foreclosures of a neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. Each foreclosed house or property is dyed in red, making them look like open wounds in this battered community.

USA Today has done a marvelous job with Google Maps at showing how violent a foreclosure frenzy can get.

[Image Source : Screenshot of USAToday's Google Maps foreclosure mashup, Denver foreclosures: One hard hit neighborhood at a glance]

As the Olympic torch makes its way around the world, as it does every time the Games are held, thousands of people have taken the opportunity to protest China's dealings with Tibet. In almost every city it's visited, protests have caused such a ruckus that the torch has either been extinguished, hid inside a bus, secretly re-routed, or otherwise protected from anyone the police perceive as a threat to the torch, the people who came to see it, or the athletes.

All these protests may have an unexpected benefit: inspiring us to think more critically -- and historically -- about the torch itself.

Throughout my childhood from the mid-1970s through the 1980s, I grew up thinking of the Olympic torch as an icon that celebrates national diversity, and the tremendous power of sport to help us put differences aside and simply enjoy the amazing athletic feats that human beings can accomplish.

It never occurred to me that this symbol of unity had Nazi origins. Invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the modern torch relay was part of Hitler's fascination with classical Greek culture. And as the torch traveled around the world that inaugural year, it received a hero's welcome.

"Sporting chivalrous contest," Hitler declared just before the torch was lit, "helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire."

Within a few years, many of the nations the torch passed through were invaded by the Nazis, and people who had come out to celebrate its arrival were en route to concentration camps.

When Carl Diem, who invented the Olympic torch relay and became the Nazi military commander, reluctantly announced in 1945 that the war was over, he did so at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. In the same speech, he declared that the Third Reich was not over.

As the torch continues its tour this spring, inspiring thousands to take a stand against political tyranny, perhaps it will once again take on new meaning. And maybe future generations will take it not as a benign symbol of international diversity, but as the complicated, storied icon it is.

Last Friday, at a memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Senator John McCain was nearly booed off-stage when he admitted to having voted against a national holiday for Dr. King when President Ronald Reagan proposed one in 1983. In fact, Arizona was one of the last states to acknowledge it as such, finally doing so in the late 1990s. And while reports give some attention to the fact that McCain apologized, they are simply too short to provide the whole story. This is the section of the speech that most of the media has focused on:

But the rest of his speech might have come from straight from Senator Obama. He stresses equality, liberty, the necessity of "cutting off the chain of hate and evil" -- and to achieve it all through love. Only when he invokes Christianity does he reveal his more characteristic Republican persona. Most of all, the speech is eloquent and compelling.

Regardless of how you or I might feel about McCain overall, this is a telling case of how the media too often emphasizes sensationalism over information. The headlines imply that McCain stood up and said, "I am against this!" In fact, he not only led up to his admission with long, heartfelt praise of Dr. King; he also admitted promptly that he had been wrong in 1983.

Here is the rest:

Today Google and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees unveiled a refugee crisis mapping project using Google Earth. From the press release:

The UNHCR layers, which were compiled by technical and editorial staff within the agency's communications service, currently focus on three of the refugee agency's global operations - Chad/Darfur, Colombia and Iraq - but plans are under way to expand.

"In 2008, we are going to spread around the world and try and capture all of the major sites and make sure that they are all available so that people can see what the actual situation is on the ground," Johnstone said. "It will make it possible to bring that suffering [of refugees in harsh environments] to people, so people can understand where the responsibilities actually are," he added.

In order to use this tool you need to download Google Earth as well as the UNHCR's mapping layers (you can download everything you need from the UNHCR site, Bird's Eye View of a Refugee's World). Once you install Google Earth, you double click on the UNHCR map file and it all gets loaded into the system.

I took it for a ride just minute before writing this post and found it overwhelming for one reason: If they are focusing only on Chad/Darfur, Colombia and Iraq, there's an incredible amount of information on those maps that's OUTSIDE those countries. Why? Because they're mapping where the refugees end up going to as well as the internal displacement happening in those countries and their regions.

Kudos to Google Earth and UNHCR for finding such a novel way to give a powerful visual perspective on the magnitude of the refugee crisis.

"I don't know if people realize the sacrifice that's been made by thousands of families," Phil Donahue said to Sharmini Peries of The Real News in this interview about the Iraq war and the lives it's ruining -- namely the veterans who return home so physically injured they will never lead normal lives again.

"There are thousands of families where these dramas are taking place, behind closed doors, and people never see it," he added. "And there are still people beating drums for this war, and these are the same people who would send other people's kids to go fight it."

He ends the interview with a plea to Senatar John McCain, which I think is worth printing here for emphasis:

"Senator McCain, what does 'win' mean? And how long shall we take to win? And are you willing to sacrifice more people in this war? In other words, we should send more soldiers to war, to die, because we've already sent soldiers to war to die? Stop this, Senator McCain. Iraq was never a threat to us. Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq didn't knock down the towers, senator! They didn't knock down the towers. It was our invasion that brought Al Queda into Iraq. Now let's see that. Let's be brave. Let's remember all those people who are saying, 'Don't send bombs to kill innocent people to avenge the deaths of my innocent loved ones.' Those are the true Americans."

Imagine if New York's taps ran dry. What would we do? We'd probably walk through the streets in search of the nearest water source, in this case Central Park Pond, and have no choice but to bring the water home to serve to our families, to cook, clean and drink. This 60 second short allows us to imagine for a moment what life without clean water would be like in New York City. Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly, Hotel Rwanda director Terry George, and award- winning cinematographer Ellen Kuras volunteered their time to shoot the piece.

American Idol was generous enough to donate 60 seconds of national airtime to screen our Public Service announcement. Watch it tonight for Idol Gives Back at 7:30PM EST on FOX.

Go to Charity Water to get involved or join the cause!

Everyone's heard of it, and some people can still explain pretty much what it was. But most people consider "The New Deal" a historical phenomenon, like the Vietnam War or the Bolshevik Revolution.

They're not wrong. It was historical: In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began a series of programs that he promised the American people to help ease the burdens of the Great Depression. Scheduled to last until 1938, these initiatives fell under the umbrella term "The New Deal." It technically ended at the outbreak of World War II, when the war suddenly created a great many jobs and gave the economy an enormous boost.

But Howard Zinn, a leftist historian and social critic, asks in this week's issue of The Nation, why aren't any of the presidential hopefuls invoking this most relevant, historic program in their campaigns?

The parallels between the 1930s and today, Zinn writes, are many, and contemporary America would benefit enormously from a program like Roosevelt's New Deal. It's an idea, Zinn writes, whose "time has come."

What if, Zinn, suggests, a presidential candidate gave a speech along these lines:

"Our nation is in crisis, just as it was when Roosevelt took office. At that time, people desperately needed help, they needed jobs, decent housing, protection in old age. They needed to know that the government was for them and not just for the wealthy classes. This is what the American people need today.

"I will do what the New Deal did, to make up for the failure of the market system. It put millions of people to work through the Works Progress Administration, at all kinds of jobs, from building schools, hospitals, playgrounds, to repairing streets and bridges, to writing symphonies and painting murals and putting on plays. We can do that today for workers displaced by closed factories, for professionals downsized by a failed economy, for families needing two or three incomes to survive, for writers and musicians and other artists who struggle for security.

"The New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps at its peak employed 500,000 young people. They lived in camps, planted millions of trees, reclaimed millions of acres of land, built 97,000 miles of fire roads, protected natural habitats, restocked fish and gave emergency help to people threatened by floods.

"We can do that today, by bringing our soldiers home from war and from the military bases we have in 130 countries. We will recruit young people not to fight but to clean up our lakes and rivers, build homes for people in need, make our cities beautiful, be ready to help with disasters like Katrina. The military is having a hard time recruiting young men and women for war, and with good reason. We will have no such problem enlisting the young to build rather than destroy.

"We can learn from the Social Security program and the GI Bill of Rights, which were efficient government programs, doing for older people and for veterans what private enterprise could not do. We can go beyond the New Deal, extending the principle of social security to health security with a totally free government-run health system. We can extend the GI Bill of Rights to a Civilian Bill of Rights, offering free higher education for all.

"We will have trillions of dollars to pay for these programs if we do two things: if we concentrate our taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population, not only their incomes but their accumulated wealth, and if we downsize our gigantic military machine, declaring ourselves a peaceful nation."

With all the talk about immigration policy, one significant fact is often left out: Many cities discourage enforcing the laws. New York, Detroit, and Washington D.C. even have policies in place to that effect.

But San Francisco, which has long maintained a kind of "don't ask, don't tell" stance towards its immigrants without papers, has taken it up a notch. Last week, Mayor Gavin Newsom launched an advertising campaign that actually beckons illegal immigrants with the promise that the city will neither hassle nor report them.

The ads, which are published in Spanish, Russian, English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, promise these immigrants "safe access" to public services such as schools, health clinics, and even the police.

Detractors worry that by encourging people to break federal law, the San Francisco government is undermining the national interest. Many are also concerned that allowing illegal immigrants in to San Francisco will have a negative effect on the city's crime rate, education, health, and environment.

But as Mayor Newsom told the press, "We're not arguing against common-sense reforms. We're not arguing against reforms at all. But in lieu of that, we're doing the best we can to say if they see a crime report it, and if they have a child educate them."

From the People For The American Way website :

The DREAM Act removes the section of the [Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA)] that discourages states from providing in-state tuition to undocumented students and creates the opportunity for these students to achieve permanent resident status. This bill addresses the reality of young people who have been raised in the U.S. and have graduated from U.S. high schools, but cannot pursue higher education because of barriers posed by current immigration laws. Today, an estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year without hope of pursuing a higher education.

Many social justice advocates like myself believe the IIRIRA did more than change immigration law in this country. It is a piece of legislation that turns the back of the United States as a nation of immigrants by turning one of humanity's basic practices -- the movement of people from one region of the world to another in the search for better conditions -- into a crime. A turn for the worse that has had most of it's impact on the children of immigrants. In some cases children have suffered the backlash of immigration sweeps and raids by becoming "migra orphans", due to their parents being deported. In other cases children have had to withstand prison-like conditions with their families in detention centers while they wait for their cases to be heard.

This clip was created by the fine people of Brave New Films. Part documentarians, part social justice activists, Robert Greenwald and his group have put together a video about the "the Dreamers" of "A Dream Deferred", immigrant teenagers, most who were brought to the US as young as 2 years old. The Dreamers have been raised and educated in the US and ready to enter college, and are now fighting for their right to the American Dream.

There is no denying that the rise in hate crimes against Latinos has a lot to do with the fact Latinos are not only the largest minority in the United States but also the fastest growing. This has sent shivers down the spines of extremists who seek to rid the country of anybody brown and Spanish speaking, giving us "legales" many reasons to seek more political power.

Which is why I truly and sincerely appreciate Voto Latino's "get out the vote" campaign. Instead of going all grim and angry they've taken the fun and campy route with their VotoNovelas*. It's like, they've not just made political lemonade, they've totally thrown a couple of mojitos in the mix.

I honestly, can't tell you how much I laugh every time I watch one of these VotoNovelas*. They're awesome!

NB * : As an avid bilingual linguist and neologist, it seems fit to use a pun: Votonovela rhimes with fotonovela. The 1970s were the heydays of fotonovelas, a cross between picture books and soap operas that you'd buy everywhere in the hemisphere but that were mostly produced in Mexico. And, man, they were as cheesy if not more than Rosario Dawson or Wilmer Valderrama could have ever dreamed up.

The headline says it all: "Congestion Pricing Killed in Albany." I can't say I'm surprised but I'm certainly disappointed. New York's Mayor Mike Bloomberg was pushing to charge cars that came into the heart of Manhattan in an attempt to cut back on pollution, congestion and, not coincidentally, generate billions of dollars in fees for mass transit. The city would also pick up some $360 million from the feds along the way. Well, thanks to our dysfunctional friends in Albany, the plan was killed without even reaching the floor for a vote. Everyone talks about "new ideas" and "thinking out of the box," but just try it and see what happens. A handful of people in Albany call the shots and the everyone else falls in line. Not only have they failed to halt the rest of the state's decline into poverty by developing a knowledge-based economy in a region teeming with brainiacs, they also relish blocking any new ideas that comes out of New York. It's so bad in Albany that the city had to go to court numerous times to get the money it was entitled to from the state for the New York City public schools. So if you're waiting around for the state to get its act together now that they've driven Spitzer out of town and installed crony David Paterson in the Governor's mansion, don't hold your breath.

Running for charity is nothing new, and everyone knows that many of the most noted runners in any major event are African. But usually these two facts have nothing to do with each other.

Next Sunday, this will change when six Masai Warriors run the London Marathon to raise money for water supplies back home. A semi-nomadic ethnic group from regions in Tanzania and Kenya, the Masai get most of their exercise from hunting the cattle that provide their diet of milk, meat, and blood.

Aim 4 Africa, a Sheffield-based travel firm, is sponsoring the six warriors, who hope to raise between 20,000 and 60,000 British pounds by their effort. The firm is also urging other companies to chip in. The motivation came from Paul Martin, who worked with the Masai in 2005 as part of the international aid organization Greenforce. Martin plans to run the marathon along with the warriors.

The men will race in shoes made from old tires, and sell for under one pound for a pair.

The Masai's statement is admirable, but also a little ironic: marathons use a huge amount of water to keep their thousands of runners hydrated along the 26.2 mile course. And sometimes they even run out. Last October, the Chicago Marathon ran out of water and had to cancel the race for anyone who hadn't crossed the half-way mark by a certain time. And in Paris, the marathon foregoes the more traditional paper cups for that race's 35,000 runners and serves water in 33-cl plastic bottles. With eight water stations along the route for all 35,000 marathoners, that comes to 280,000 bottles of water -- many of which are chucked to the roadside after just a few sips.

Maybe because of this, the Masai will draw some much-needed attention to the inefficient use of water in marathons such as the one they'll be running.

Now for the lighter side of the story. To smooth the Warriors' entry into an enormous European city, Greenforce has created a visitors' guide to help them blend in.

Listening on iTunes to my favorite radio station, Santa Monica's KCRW , I heard a song Hello Vietnam that stopped me at my keyboard. Originally sung in French by Quynh Anh, the song was first discovered by the Vietnamese community and has since spread worldwide. The primary vehicle is the soulful chanteuse herself, born in 1987 in Belgium where her parents met. She tells the story here in her "About this Video" description on Youtube.

"I was born in 1987. Already 20 years growing up in Belgium, studying, having fun and, most important to me, learning music! My parents both come from Vietnam but they didn't know each other until they arrived in Belgium. I sometimes think about what my life would have been like if they had met in Vietnam. But it isn't so and I wouldn't wish my life to be different. All the same I do know a bit about Vietnam. Cooking at home is still Vietnamese most of the time. I can understand a few words in Vietnamese and my family used to perform traditional songs and folk dances at Chinese New Year. At the same time, I live and think more like a Belgian. For example, I like to eat chocolate (a bit more than I should...) or to have a beer with my friends. Anyway these two cultures are integral parts of my personality. The more time goes by, the more certain I am it was destiny. And I'm also sure that singing is my way. True, so far I've always been lucky in my career. It all began when I won a song contest on TV. I met my manager there. He guided me to my producer, who then made my duet with Marc Lavoine possible. Then with "J'espere", I followed Marc Lavoine on tour around France, Belgium and even Switzerland. It is really incredible for a young artist to have such an experience. But he didn't stop there and wrote me my first songs, including "Bonjour Vietnam". Actually this song already has its own story. By mistake, the unfinished version of the song got put on the internet. A few days later, Vietnamese people around the world heard "Bonjour Vietnam" and were quite touched by its message, I suppose. Well, I hope all this will go on and lead me to other places, other people. Perhaps it will guide me to meet you... I hope so." - Quynh Anh/Ramona Shelby

It is the english version of the track however that will be released as her first single. The song, in an english adaptation by Guy Balbaert, is called " Hello Vietnam". You can already listen to an extract of the song now on Quynh Anh official website

There is something incredibly uplifting and soulful about this song that crosses cultural boundaries, which is a good thing. So I guess it qualifies in this category. I was hoping I would be able to make this fit. 'Cause it's so worth it.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Across the country, memorials and tributes will take place, people will intone sentiments of racial and social justice, and school children will be educated in the teachings of one of America's greatest historical figures.

Among those teachings, King's environmental vision is not likely to be the focus -- except for at The Dream Reborn, one of the largest MLK tributes in the nation. Held in Memphis, where Dr. King was killed on April 4th, 1968, The Dream Reborn lasts from today through Sunday, and is hosted by Green For All, a non-profit dedicated to environmental issues. Featuring leaders and visionaries on the green vanguard, the conference both celebrates Dr. King and addresses diverse green causes from resource development to sustainability and increasing the "green collar" workforce.

Aside from being in Memphis, the conference is sold out. So in lieu of attending in person, we offer this brief promotional video:

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, aka the infamous "Dr. Death", announced in March that he plans to run for a Congressional seat representing a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. Kevorkian, who has no party affiliation, was released from prison last year after serving eight years for assisting in the suicide of a man with Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Hence his primary agenda: prison reform.

Kevorkian's jury consultant, Ruth Holmes, told the Associated Press that the former "suicide doctor" promised that his previous career is behind him -- no doubt because if he does assist in another suicide, he'll go back to prison.

Kevorkian's secondary platform is "bringing integrity to government," reports the AP, which in itself might not seem all that surprising. But think about this: Kevorkian was in prison for eight years, coincidentally the same period during which our government's integrity has been in a constant state of decline.

Maybe he was keeping up with the daily news from the inside, or maybe he's just figured out in short order what's wrong with the status quo. Either way, Kevorkian will no doubt make Michigan's Congressional election this year one for the ages.

Dr. Jay Parkinson has an innovative take on old-fashioned medicine: Do it online.

The Brooklyn-based doctor became something of a media darling last year when he began a virtual practice out of his Brooklyn apartment. After one initial consultation, Dr. Parkinson uses just a Macintosh with Web 2.0 as his primary tool. Through instant messaging, video chat, and other remote applications, he is able to work with his patients in what he believes to be a more efficient manner than making them schedule appointments and spend hours in a waiting room just for simple follow-up sessions.

"I Am A New Kind of Physician" Parkinson boasts on his Website's homepage, making a bold -- if immodest -- self-endorsement. And instead of viewing this as an inhuman way of treating his patients, Dr. Parkinson considers it almost a throw-back to the good ol' days, when your neighborhood doctor was someone you could call on anytime -- little black medicine bag in tow.

Gawker.com calls Parkinson a "hipster doctor", and maybe he is. After all, he's young, good-looking, and he lives in Williamsburg. But judging from his Website, he seems to take his work seriously. And since a large portion of his practice is devoted to young, uninsured freelance types (of which there are many thousands in New York alone), is this really such a bad thing? At least he's someone they can relate to.

Wow! This concept is so simple, I can't believe it's not available to the 1.4 billion people who suffer daily without access to adequate water.

As we have pointed out elsewhere in this blog, 2.2 million people around the world die of diseases developed by either the lack of or the access only to dirty water. About half of them are children.

Women and girls have the burden of searching for clean water and they lose over 40 billion hours a year in their quest. It's the #1 reason many girls in rural areas never go to school --they're more valuable as water hoarders.

Playpums were created with this reality in mind. The company has found a unique way of supporting the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals by creating playground equipment that harnesses children's play power in order to bring water to a whole community. And with the merry-go-round firmly in place in a community space or a school, women and children but especially girls, do not have to forgo learning to spend countless hours looking for a drink of water.

I am really impressed with this amazing example of engineering ingenuity.

When I first heard about a night at the IFC on March 13th showcasing 6 short clips from upcoming documentaries, I immediately was intrigued. The annual event, Film Collection, consists of viewing impactful and at times heart-wrenching films followed by Q&A with the director/producers.

Each year the Film Collection event benefits a chosen charity - this year it was Charity: Water, an organization that brings clean water to communities in need in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, and Malawi.

With the storytelling abilities of Hanady Salman, personally, I felt most connected to the War of 33 and am anxious for the full length documentary to be released, however plan to see all of the full length features. The event was truly captivating - keep your eyes out for the release of all these films!

This year's films included:

Fair Trade - Directed by Michael Dreher, short
"The shortest distance and at the same time the most obvious gap between the so-called Third World Countries and Europe is the Straits of Gibraltar. 'Fair Trade' is one of the many stories that happen there every day."

Soldiers of Conscience - Directed by Catherine Ryan, documentary feature
"Their country asked them to kill. Their hearts asked them to stop. From West Point grads to drill sergeants, from Abu Ghraib interrogators to low-ranking reservist -mechanics; soldiers in the US Army today reveal their deepest moral concerns about what they are asked to do in war."

Reborn - Directed by Drea Cooper, documentary feature
"'Reborn: New Orleans Schools' chronicles the first official year of public school in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The centerpiece is the charter school movement's efforts to radically transform education for the city's mostly African-American public school children, many of whom would still be attending some of the worst performing schools in the nation."

Still Bill - Directed by Damani Baker and Alex Vlack
"'Still Bill' follows the story of Bill Withers, best known for his classics, 'Ain't No Sunshine,' 'Grandma's Hands,' 'Lean on Me,' Lovely Day,' and 'Just the Two of Us.' But Withers' musical life is just one part of a complex man who was raised in the coal mining towns of West Virginia, sailed for nine years in the Navy, worked as an airplane mechanic, rose to the top of the charts, and then left it behind to raise a family: a life rich with meaning, beyond ethereal fame."

War of 33: Letters from Beirut - Directed by Richard Rowley, documentary feature
"'The War of 33' is an intimate, personal and powerful telling of the story of the 2006 war in Lebanon. A series of letters written by Hanady Salman carves a narrative arc through the intense and haunting images of conflict. She tells the stories of her family and the people she lives the war with and the everyday Lebanese, struggling to maintain their sanity and their humanity during a time of war."

The Americana Project - Directed by Topaz Adizes, documentary feature
"'The Americana Project' explores the various shades of American identity using both the intimate story of two teens in their few months of high school before they enlist in the U.S. Army and the global perspective of foreigners living in various cities around the world."

[Summaries provided by Film Collection]